Refinement Database

In June 2006 a loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) was admitted to a rescue centre on the Mediterranean coast with severe fishing net entanglement in its fore right flipper. The flipper could not be saved...

This paper describes a method in which horses learn to communicate by touching different neutral visual symbols, in order to tell the handler whether they want to have a blanket on or not. Horses were...

Domestic horses are regularly subjected to stressful situations due to management practices, such as social isolation, transport and farriery or, in general due to exposure to new/sudden stimuli. These situations may eventually be harmful to...

Fish are one of the most highly utilised vertebrate taxa by humans; they are harvested from wild stocks as part of global fishing industries, grown under intensive aquaculture conditions, are the most common pet and...

With regards to the issue of animal training in the zoo community, there is some debate as to whether or not it should be considered a type of environmental enrichment (EE). This article suggests four...

Behavior and behavior-associated issues are an important part of psittacine medicine. However, many veterinarians have an approach to parrots from the basics of handling and restraint to their assessment of behavioral issues (e.g., feather plucking)...

Husbandry training of zoo animals (training) has been associated with many benefits, and indisputably is a valuable tool; training facilitates movement of animals within their environment, and participation in husbandry and medical procedures. Training has...

Replacement, Reduction and Refinement, the Three Rs of Russell & Burch, are accepted worldwide as fundamental to the ethics of animal experimentation. The production, care and use of genetically-altered animals can pose particular challenges to...

Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction, Fourth Edition offers a user-friendly guide to the unique anatomy and physiology, care, common diseases, and treatment of small mammals and nonhuman primates. Carefully designed for ease of use...

Originally enacted in 1966, the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act has been amended several times and renamed the Animal Welfare Act. Responsibility for administering the Animal Welfare Act was delegated within the United States Department of...

Most regulations governing animal experimentation require that the harms expected to be incurred by animal subjects should be balanced against the likely benefits of the project. Too often, however, expected human benefits are based on...

A respected resource for decades, the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals has been updated by a committee of experts, taking into consideration input from the scientific and laboratory animal communities and...

To do justice to the diverse approaches to enrichment and behavioral management around the world would entail a discussion beyond the limits of this publication. Therefore, guidelines and regulations in a representative sample of countries...

These guidelines aim to provide information for investigators, animal care committees, facility managers and animal care staff that will assist in improving both the care given to farm animals and the manner in which experimental...

The regulation of the use of animals for experimental and other scientific purposes and the determination of minimum required standards of animal care and accommodation within Europe is generally informed by recommendations and conventions at...

In Japan, the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) provides guidelines for laboratory animal facilities and equipment. Guidelines are not legally binding but serve as the authority for proper facilities and equipment management. The first guideline...

Fish have the same stress response and powers of nociception as mammals. Their behavioural responses to a variety of situations suggest a considerable ability for higher level neural processing – a level of consciousness equivalent...

The German law on animal protection might be more utilitarian than the American law. The legislators obviously tried to meet the needs of the animals. However, its poor definitions of main concepts such as pain...

On the basis of this paper's conclusions (White et al., 1989), the USDA decreased their cage size requirements and removed the increased space requirement for breeding guinea pigs. How well did the study determine the...

Stress associated with transportation has widespread effects on physiological systems in laboratory animals, including changes in the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, central nervous, and reproductive systems. Although short-lived, these changes can confound research if animals are...

This article provides details to consider when preparing to use animals in biomedical research. The stress of transport and receipt of animals into a new environment mandate the need for a period of stabilization and...

In this article, laws and guidelines relating to rodent enrichment are reviewed, the natural behaviors of select rodent species are discussed, and an overview of widely used types of enrichment in laboratory rodent management is...

Expanding on the National Research Council’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, this book deals specifically with mammals in neuroscience and behavioral research laboratories. It offers flexible guidelines for the care of...

Many are critical of how regulatory testing practices have evolved and become established—critical both of the scientific rational and the animal welfare costs. The test of whether we are more enlightened than our predecessors will...

When attending veterinarians are not provided adequate job security by research institutions, there is no guarantee that they are reliable allies of nonhuman animals and implement the provisions set forth in the federal animal welfare...